Self-Administered Mid-Semester Feedback Surveys

1. Set an expectation. 

   Ideally, you should put a description of the questionnaire on your course syllabus and on the course calendar to ensure students understand that the survey is built into the course design (O’Neal-Hixson et al., 2017; Palmer et al., 2016). This reinforcement prompts students to think of the survey as a component of the learning process and can improve response rates.

2. Choose your survey platform.

   There are several options to consider when selecting a survey medium. CTRL recommends choosing one of the following:

   • Paper – Paper is a useful survey medium as it allows for high response rates when administering the survey in class. It is, however, not fully anonymous, and deciphering handwriting can occasionally be challenging.
   • Canvas – Canvas is a convenient survey platform which your students already have access to and are familiar with. It allows for anonymous survey completion while still allowing you to track which students completed the survey. Review the Canvas guide for “How do I create a survey in my course?” for more information on how to set up your survey.
   • Qualtrics – Qualtrics is an online survey platform available to the AU community. It allows you to share a single anonymous link for students to access the survey. While Qualtrics cannot be directly linked to Canvas, it is equipped with more advanced survey design options, including complete anonymization of survey data.

3. Develop your survey.

   Take a look at the sample surveys on this page for ideas about questions to ask. CTRL Teaching & Learning Specialists  are also here to work with you to develop your questions.

4. In class or outside of class?

   CTRL recommends administering the survey during class to increase the likelihood of a high response rate (Reisenwitz, 2016). If you prefer to allow students to complete the survey outside of class, be sure to remind students of the value of participating in the feedback process.

5. Prepare students for the survey.

   Explain the purpose and process of the questionnaire with students in class and through email before administering it (Guder & Malliaris, 2013; McDonnell & Dodd, 2017). Inform students that you are conducting this survey voluntarily to improve their learning experience and assure them that their responses will remain anonymous.

6. Administer the survey.

   If administering the questionnaire in class, conduct it at the beginning of class to ensure students have sufficient time to complete it (Kite, et al., 2015). If administering the questionnaire outside of class, select a window for completion that provides ample opportunity for students to participate; 1-2 weeks or more is ideal, depending on the course size and meeting schedule (Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.).

Sample Prompt

Thank you for taking the time to complete this feedback survey! I am excited to read and implement your feedback in our course to improve the learning experience for all. I will use the feedback you share, together with the responses of your peers, to improve our course. Once I have reviewed and compiled the responses, I will share with you an overview of the responses as well as descriptions of any changes that result from your feedback.

Please answer the following questions clearly and honestly using specific examples where possible. All responses are anonymous, and the survey is voluntary, so you do not have to fill it out. However, I highly encourage you to participate in the survey, as your responses will directly affect the rest of our time together!

Sample Questionnaires:

Sample #1  

(Freishtat, 2014)  

1. What has been most helpful to your learning in the class so far?
2. What has been least helpful to your learning in the class so far?
3. What suggestions do you have that would help your learning in the class? 

Sample #2

(O’Neal-Hixson et al., 2017) 

1. What do you LIKE MOST about this course so far?
2. What do you LIKE LEAST about this course so far?
3. What suggestions do you have for your INSTRUCTOR to improve your learning experiences in this course?
4. What might YOU do to improve your own learning experiences and those of other students in this course?  

Sample #3

(Snooks et al., 2004) 

1. What (if anything) is interfering with your learning?
2. What suggestions do you have to improve your learning?
3. What is your instructor doing that helps you to learn?  

Sample #4

(Claremont Colleges Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.) 

Select 3-4 of the following questions: 

• What aspects of the course are best contributing to your learning? Please try to be as specific as possible. 
• What aspects of the course are detracting from your learning? Please try to be as specific as possible. 
• Based on your answers to the previous questions, what can I do differently to make this course a better learning experience? 
• What can you do differently to make this course a better learning experience? 
• What did you find of most value from the readings/assignments in the course and why? 
• What is the most important/valuable thing you have learned in this course so far?
• What is the least important/valuable thing you have learned in this course so far?
• What, if anything, is still unclear?
• Is the pace of the course too fast/slow/about right?
• How many hours per week, on average, do you spend on this course outside of class time?
• What suggestions do you have for improving this course? 

1. Analyze the data.

   When the responses have been collected, review the results as soon as possible (Payette & Brown, 2018).

   Here are some ways to analyze your data:

   • Read through, categorize, and prioritize student responses. Consider frequency (a comment that is often made merits attention) versus weight (an isolated comment that expresses a great deal of anxiety or confusion also merits attention). You may also consider the type of change students are suggesting, such as ones related to course design versus classroom instruction strategies.
   • Make a list of suggestions and prioritize them (e.g., changes which can be applied now versus in a future semester, changes which are immediately actionable versus changes you are not able to implement).
   • Look for themes, such as questions or concerns expressed by several students.

   It can also help to assign comments to three ‘piles’ of feedback:

   • What aspects of the class can be changed now;
   • What aspects can be changed for a future semester;
   • What is not changeable about the course.

   When reviewing feedback, try to acknowledge yourself in positive student comments. It may be tempting to focus on critiques, but it is important to recognize the energy and time students took to share what is going well in the course. Though not all feedback will be productive or actionable, try to practice empathy for your students’ perspectives. Students typically offer feedback for the same reason that instructors seek it: to establish a positive learning experience.

   If possible, interpret your student feedback with others! Another person’s perspective, such as that of a fellow instructor, colleague, supervisor, or CTRL Teaching & Learning Specialist, can help you sort through the feedback and recognize patterns.; just be sure the feedback is anonymized before sharing it with others.

2. Discuss the feedback with the class.

   Debriefing is essential to help students understand how their feedback will impact the course, and it shows students you take their feedback seriously. Start by thanking your students for taking the time to share their perspectives. Acknowledge what is going well in the course, take credit, and remind students about the deliberate decisions you have made to support their learning. Clarify any confusions or questions you have about their insights and guide the discussion toward actionable changes. Be clear and transparent about which aspects of feedback you will address immediately, which must wait until the course is offered again, and which you will not be able to address and why. Discussing your reasoning with students helps them to understand how instructional decisions are made and helps them understand what aspects of the course are and aren’t under your purview. (Davis & Tollefson, n.d.).

3. Act on the feedback.

   Alter discussing the feedback with your students, implement the changes you agreed to. This step is critical to establishing a relationship of mutual trust between instructors and students, as it demonstrates to students that honest feedback can improve their learning experiences (Wickramasinghe & Timpson, 2006).

Student feedback is an important component of any teaching portfolio. Including student feedback and showing how you applied it, demonstrates a reflective and learner-centered approach to teaching. If administering your own feedback survey or conversation, you may consider including that anonymous feedback in your teaching portfolio as a form of assessment

A teaching portfolio can be strengthened by the inclusion of multiple types of student feedback. SET scores are a required component of tenure, promotion, and reappointment teaching portfolios at AU; however, they are an incomplete expression of student feedback and subject to bias. Adding other types of feedback to your portfolio can offset the shortcomings of SET feedback and offer an expansive and nuanced snapshot of the student experience, in their own words.

1. Include context:

Share the questions and prompts provided to students and note that this is feedback from a midsemester survey that you facilitated. You may include additional context for the survey, such as why you decided to collect feedback, how you determined which questions to ask, how you ensured respondent anonymity, or how you utilized the resulting feedback.

2. Share all of the data from your survey:

You may feel pressure to only share praise or positive feedback when including student feedback in a portfolio. Dong so, however, can paint an unrealistic picture of the teaching and learning experience, which will inevitably include challenges and change. Such misrepresentation also elides how you have learned and grown from critique. CTRL encourages instructors to include the full set of responses for any survey they plan to include in their teaching portfolio. The purpose of a teaching portfolio is not to demonstrate your effectiveness as an instructor, but to illustrate how you have reflected on your teaching and continually improved over time. In your teaching statement, you may reference specific student suggestions and how you responded to them or how you decided which feedback to integrate.

3. Present the Results:

You might choose to report your feedback in the style of CTRL Midsemester Course Analysis reports, which include summary bulleted lists of 1) elements of the class that are helping students learn, 2) elements of the class that are causing students difficulty, and 3) suggestions students offered to improve the course. You can then follow up those three summary lists with a short reflection on changes you were able to address immediately, changes that you would make when teaching the course in the future, and changes you were not able to address and why. If you share student feedback from multiple semesters, you can demonstrate how the feedback has evolved over time to mirror the changes you have made to the course. For example, you may point out that you were asked to practice more transparency in one semester, and how such comments decreased (or are completely absent) in a later semester, after you implemented more transparency.